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Paolo Rivera looks back on 2008’s Mythos: Captain America

Paolo Rivera’s blog posts are always interesting and informative, but few can top this reflection on Mythos: Captain America, his 2008 collaboration with Paul Jenkins that retold the origin of the Sentinel of Liberty (it was part of a series of one-shots that, in Rivera’s words, was designed to “bridge the gap between Marvel comics and Marvel movies”).

Sprinkled liberally with Rivera’s stunning work, the post also serves as a reminder of how quickly the artist has risen through the ranks of comics talent since 2006, when the Mythos series debuted. “The series did less than amazing in terms of sales, but Marvel still followed through with the project until we had enough issues to collect into a beautiful hardcover,” he recalls. “If nothing else, it proved to be a fantastic platform for jumpstarting my career — aside from being paired with a top-tier writer, I got to illustrate the cream of the crop in terms of Marvel characters. And all that while I was still a rookie: when they gave me the job, I had painted just 34 pages for them.”

Now, of course, Rivera is acclaimed for his work on Marvel’s Daredevil (he shares two Eisner Awards for the title), and does brisk sales on the original-art market. “The fact that I was commissioned to work on Marvel’s flagship characters so early on was a privilege I recognized from the start,” he writes, “however, the benefits extended to my original art sales, which quickly became a third of my income (a much-welcomed addition since I was such a slow painter).”

Visit Rivera’s blog to read more and to see more art from Mythos: Captain America.